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The Tale Of The Three Apples
THEY relate, O King of the Age and Lord of the Time and of these days,
that the Caliph Harun al-Rashid summoned his Wazir Ja'afar one night and
said to him: "I desire to go down into the city and question the
common folk concerning the conduct of those charged with its governance,
and those of whom they complain we will depose from office and those whom
they commend we will promote." Quoth Ja'afar, "Hearkening and
obedience!"
So the Caliph went down with Ja'afar and the eunuch Masrur to the town and
walked about the streets and markets, and as they were threading a narrow
alley, they came upon a very old man with a fishing net and crate to carry
small fish on his head, and in his hands a staff, and as he walked at a
leisurely pace, he repeated these lines:
"They say me: 'Thou shinest a light to mankind
With thy lore as the night which the Moon doth uplight!'
I answer, 'A truce to your jests and your gibes.
Without luck what is learning?- a poor-devil wight!
If they take me to pawn with my lore in my pouch,
With my volumes to read and my ink case to write,
For one day's provision they never could pledge me,
As likely on Doomsday to draw bill at sight.'
How poorly, indeed, doth it fare wi' the poor,
With his pauper existence and beggarly plight.
In summer he faileth provision to find,
In winter the fire pot's his only delight.
The street dogs with bite and with bark to him rise,
And each losel receives him with bark and with bite.
If he lift up his voice and complain of his wrong,
None pities or heeds him, however he's right,
And when sorrows and evils like these he must brave,
His happiest homestead were down in the grave."
When the Caliph heard his verses, he said to Ja'afar, "See this
poor man and note his verses, for surely they point to his
necessities." Then he accosted him and asked, "O Sheikh, what be
thine occupation?" And the poor man answered: "O my lord, I am a
fisherman with a family to keep and I have been out between midday and
this time, and not a thing hath Allah made my portion wherewithal to feed
my family. I cannot even pawn myself to buy them a supper, and I hate and
disgust my life and I hanker after death." Quoth the Caliph,
"Say me, wilt thou return with us to Tigris' bank and cast thy net on
my luck, and whatsoever turneth up I will buy of thee for a hundred gold
pieces?" The man rejoiced when he heard these words and said:
"On my head be it! I will go back with you," and, returning with
them riverward, made a cast and waited a while.
Then he hauled in the rope and dragged the net ashore and there appeared
in it a chest, padlocked and heavy. The Caliph examined it and lifted it,
finding, it weighty, so he gave the fisherman two hundred dinars and sent
him about his business whilst Masrur, aided by the Caliph, carried the
chest to the palace and set it down and lighted the candles. Ja'afar and
Masrur then broke it open and found therein a basket of palm leaves corded
with red worsted. This they cut open and saw within it a piece of carpet,
which they lifted out, and under it was a woman's mantilla folded in four,
which they pulled out, and at the bottom of the chest they came upon a
young lady, fair as a silver ingot, slain and cut into nineteen pieces.
When the Caliph looked upon her he cried, "Alas!" and tears ran
down his cheeks and turning to Ja'afar, he said: "O dog of Wazirs,
shall folk be murdered in our reign and be cast into the river to be a
burden and a responsibility for us on the Day of Doom? By Allah, we must
avenge this woman on her murderer, and he shall be made die the worst of
deaths!"
And presently he added: "Now, as surely as we are descended from the
Sons of Abbas, if thou bring us not him who slew her, that we do her
justice on him, I will hang thee at the gate of my palace, thee and forty
of thy kith and kin by thy side." And the Caliph was wroth with
exceeding rage. Quoth Ja'afar, "Grant me three days' delay," and
quoth the Caliph, "We grant thee this." So Ja'afar went out from
before him and returned to his own house, full of sorrow and saying to
himself: "How shall I find him who murdered this damsel, that I may
bring him before the Caliph? If I bring other than the murderer, it will
be laid to my charge by the Lord. In very sooth I wot not what to
do." He kept his house three days, and on the fourth day the Caliph
sent one of the chamberlains for him, and as he came into the presence,
asked him, "Where is the murderer of the damsel?" To which
answered Ja'afar, "O Commander of the Faithful, am I inspector of
murdered folk that I should ken who killed her?" The Caliph was
furious at his answer and bade hang him before the palace gate, and
commanded that a crier cry through the streets of Baghdad: "Whoso
would see the hanging of Ja'afar, the Barmaki, Wazir of the Caliph, with
forty of the Barmecides, his cousins and kinsmen, before the palace gate,
let him come and let him look!" The people flocked out from all the
quarters of the city to witness the execution of Ja'afar and his kinsmen,
not knowing the cause.
Then they set up the gallows and made Ja'afar and the others stand
underneath in readiness for execution, but whilst every eye was looking
for the Caliph's signal, and the crowd wept for Ja'afar and his cousins of
the Barmecides, lo and behold! a young man fair of face and neat of dress
and of favor like the moon raining fight, with eyes black and bright, and
brow flower-white, and cheeks red as rose and young down where the beard
grows, and a mole like a grain of ambergris, pushed his way through the
people till he stood immediately before the Wazir and said to him:
"Safety to thee from this strait, O Prince of the Emirs and Asylum of
the Poor! I am the man who slew the woman ye found in the chest, so hang
me for her and do her justice on me!" When Ja'afar heard the youth's
confession he rejoiced at his own deliverance, but grieved and sorrowed
for the fair youth.
And whilst they were yet talking, behold, another man well stricken in
years pressed forward through the people and thrust his way amid the
populace till he came to Ja'afar and the youth, whom he saluted, saying:
"Ho, thou the Wazir and Prince sans peer! Believe not the words of
this youth. Of a surety none murdered the damsel but I. Take her wreak on
me this moment, for an thou do not thus, I will require it of thee before
Almighty Allah." Then quoth the young man: "O Wazir, this is an
old man in his dotage who wotteth not whatso he saith ever, and I am he
who murdered her, so do thou avenge her on me!" Quoth the old man:
"O my son, thou art young and desirest the joys of the world and I am
old and weary and surfeited with the world. I will offer my life as a
ransom for thee and for the Wazir and his cousins. No one murdered the
damsel but I, so Allah upon thee, make haste to hang me, for no life is
left in me now that hers is gone."
The Wazir marveled much at all this strangeness and taking the young man
and the old man, carried them before the Caliph, where, after kissing the
ground seven times between his hands, he said, "O Commander of the
Faithful, I bring thee the murderer of the damsel!" "Where is
he?" asked the Caliph, and Ja'afar answered: "This young man
saith, 'I am the murderer,' and this old man, giving him the lie, saith,
'I am the murderer,' and behold, here are the twain standing before
thee." The Caliph looked at the old man and the young man and asked,
"Which of you killed the girl?" The young man replied, "No
one slew her save I," and the old man answered, "Indeed none
killed her but myself." Then said the Caliph to Ja'afar, "Take
the twain and hang them both." But Ja'afar rejoined, "Since one
of them was the murderer, to hang the other were mere injustice."
"By Him who raised the firmament and dispread the earth like a
carpet," cried the youth, "I am he who slew the damsel,"
and he went on to describe the manner of her murder and the basket, the
mantilla, and the bit of carpet- in fact, all that the Caliph had found
upon her.
So the Caliph was certified that the young man was the murderer, whereat
he wondered and asked him: "What was the cause of thy wrongfully
doing this damsel to die, and what made thee confess the murder without
the bastinado, and what brought thee here to yield up thy life, and what
made thee say 'Do her wreak upon me'?" The youth answered:
"Know, O Commander of the Faithful, that this woman was my wife and
the mother of my children, also my first cousin and the daughter of my
paternal uncle, this old man, who is my father's own brother. When I
married her she was a maid, and Allah blessed me with three male children
by her. She loved me and served me and I saw no evil in her, for I also
loved her with fondest love. Now on the first day of this month she fell
ill with grievous sickness and I fetched in physicians to her, but
recovery came to her little by little, and when I wished her to go to the
hammam bath, she said, 'There is something I long for before I go to the
bath, and I long for it with an exceeding longing.' 'To hear is to
comply,' said I. 'And what is it?' Quoth she, 'I have a queasy craving for
an apple, to smell it and bite a bit of it.' I replied, 'Hadst thou a
thousand longings, I would try to satisfy them!' So I went on the instant
into the city and sought for apples, but could find none, yet had they
cost a gold piece each, would I have bought them. I was vexed at this and
went home and said, 'O daughter of my uncle, by Allah I can find none!'
She was distressed, being yet very weakly, and her weakness increased
greatly on her that night and I felt anxious and alarmed on her account.
"As soon as morning dawned I went out again and made the round of the
gardens, one by one, but found no apples anywhere. At last there met me an
old gardener, of whom I asked about them and he answered, 'O my son, this
fruit is a rarity with us and is not now to be found save in the garden of
the Commander of the Faithful at Bassorah, where the gardener keepeth it
for the Caliph's eating.' I returned to my house troubled by my ill
success, and my love for my wife and my affection moved me to undertake
the journey, So I at me ready and set out and traveled fifteen days and
nights, going and coming, and brought her three apples, which I bought
from the gardener for three dinars. But when I went in to my wife and set
them before her, she took no pleasure in them and let them lie by her
side, for her weakness and fever had increased on her, and her malady
lasted without abating ten days, after which she began to recover health.
"So I left my house and betaking me to my shop, sat there buying and
selling. And about midday, behold, a great ugly black slave, long as a
lance and broad as a bench, passed by my shop holding in hand one of the
three apples, wherewith he was playing, Quoth I, `O my good slave, tell me
whence thou tookest that apple, that I may get the like of it?' He laughed
and answered: `I got it from my mistress, for I had been absent and on my
return I found her lying ill with three apples by her side, and she said
to me, "My horned wittol of a husband made a journey for them to
Bassorah and bought them for three dinars." 'So I ate and drank with
her and took this one from her.' When I heard such words from the slave, O
Commander of the Faithful, the world grew black before my face, and I
arose and locked up my shop and went home beside myself for excess of
rage. I looked for the apples and finding, only two of the three, asked my
wife, `O my cousin, where is the third apple?' And raising her head
languidly, she answered, `I wot not, O son of my uncle, where 'tis gone!'
This convinced me that the slave had spoken the truth, so I took a knife
and coming behind her, got upon her breast without a word said and cut her
throat. Then I hewed off her head and her limbs in pieces and, wrapping
her in her mantilla and a rag of carpet, hurriedly sewed up the whole,
which I set in a chest and, locking it tight, loaded it on my he-mule and
threw it into the Tigris with my own hands.
"So Allah upon thee, O Commander of the Faithful, make haste to hang
me, as I fear lest she appeal for vengeance on Resurrection Day. For when
I had thrown her into the river and one knew aught of it, as I went back
home I found my eldest son crying, and yet he knew naught of what I had
done with his mother. I asked him, 'What hath made thee weep, my boy?' and
he answered, 'I took one of the three apples which were by my mammy and
went down into the lane to play with my brethren when behold, a big long
black slave snatched it from my hand and said, "Whence hadst thou
this?" Quoth I, "My father traveled far for it, and brought it
from Bassorah for my mother, who was ill, and two other apples for which
he paid three ducats." 'He took no heed of my words and I asked for
the apple a second and a third time, but he cuffed me and kicked me and
went off with it. I was afraid lest my mother should swinge me on account
of the apple, so for fear of her I went with my brother outside the city
and stayed there till evening closed in upon us, and indeed I am in fear
of her. And now, by Allah, O my father, say nothing to her of this or it
may add to her ailment!"
"When I heard what my child said, I knew that the slave was he who
had foully slandered my wife, the daughter of my uncle, and was certified
that I had slain her wrongfully. So I wept with exceeding weeping and
presently this old man, my paternal uncle and her father, came in, and I
told him what had happened and he sat down by my side and wept, and we
ceased not weeping till midnight. We have kept up mourning for her these
last five days and we lamented her in the deepest sorrow for that she was
unjustly done to die. This came from the gratuitous lying of the slave,
the blackamoor, and this was the manner of my killing her. So I conjure
thee, by the honor of thine ancestors, make haste to kill me and do her
justice upon me, as there is no living for me after her!"
The Caliph marveled at his words and said: "By Allah, the young man
is excusable. I will hang none but the accursed slave, and I will do a
deed which shall comfort the ill-at-ease and suffering, and which shall
please the All-glorious King." Then he turned to Ja'afar and said to
him: "Bring before me this accursed slave who was the sole cause of
this calamity, and if thou bring him not before me within three days, thou
shalt be slain in his stead." So Ja'afar fared forth weeping and
saying: "Two deaths have already beset me, nor shall the crock come
off safe from every shock. In this matter craft and cunning are of no
avail, but He who preserved my life the first time can preserve it a
second time. By Allah, I will not leave my house during the three days of
life which remain to me, and let the Truth (whose perfection be praised!)
do e'en as He will." So he kept his house three days, and on the
fourth day he summoned the kazis and legal witnesses and made his last
will and testament, and took leave of his children weeping.
Presently in came a messenger from the Caliph and said to him: "The
Commander of the Faithful is in the most violent rage that can be, and he
sendeth to seek thee and he sweareth that the day shall certainly not pass
without thy being hanged unless the slave be forthcoming," When
Ja'afar heard this he wept, and his children and slaves and all who were
in the house wept with him. After he had bidden adieu to everybody except
this youngest daughter, he proceeded to farewell her, for he loved this
wee one, who was a beautiful child, more than all his other children. And
he pressed her to his breast and kissed her and wept bitterly at parting
from her, when he felt something round inside the bosom of her dress and
asked her, "O my little maid, what is in the bosom pocket?"
"O my father," she replied, "it is an apple with the name
of our Lord the Caliph written upon it. Rayhan our slave brought it to me
four days ago, and would not let me have it till I gave him two dinars for
it." When Ja'afar heard speak of the slave and the apple, he was glad
and put his hand into his child's pocket and drew out the apple and knew
it and rejoiced, saying, "O ready Dispeller of trouble!"
Then he bade them bring the slave and said to him, "Fie upon thee,
Rayhan! Whence haddest thou this apple?" "By Allah, O my
master," he replied, "though a he may get a man once off, yet
may truth get him off, and well off, again and again. I did not steal this
apple from thy palace nor from the gardens of the Commander of the
Faithful. The fact is that five days ago, as I was walking along one of
the alleys of this city, I saw some little ones at play and this apple in
hand of one of them. So I snatched it from him and beat him, and he cried
and said, 'O youth, this apple is my mother's and she is ill. She told my
father how she longed for an apple, so he traveled to Bassorah and bought
her three apples for three gold pieces, and I took one of them to play
withal.' He wept again, but I paid no heed to what he said and carried it
off and brought it here, and my little lady bought it of me for two dinars
of gold. And this is the whole story."
When Ja'afar heard his words he marveled that the murder of the damsel and
all this misery should have been caused by his slave. He grieved for the
relation of the slave to himself while rejoicing over his own deliverance,
and he repeated these lines:
"If ill betide thee through thy slave,
Make him forthright thy sacrifice.
A many serviles thou shalt find,
But life comes once and never twice."
Then he took the slave's hand and, leading him to the Caliph, related
the story from first to last, and the Caliph marveled with extreme
astonishment, and laughed till he fell on his back, and ordered that the
story be recorded and be made public amongst the people. But Ja'afar said,
"Marvel not, O Commander of the Faithful, at this adventure, for it
is not more wondrous than the History of the Wazir Nur al-Din Ali of Egypt
and his brother Shams al-Din Mohammed." Quoth the Caliph, "Out
with it, but what can be stranger than this story?" And Ja'afar
answered, "O Commander of the Faithful, I will not tell it thee save
on condition that thou pardon my slave." And the Caliph rejoined,
"If it be indeed more wondrous than that of the three apples, I grant
thee his blood, and if not I will surely slay thy slave." So Ja'afar
began in these words the
Tale of Nur Al-Din Ali and his son
Badr Al-Din Hasan
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